My 2 CentsWhen & Why To Choose Illustrator For Web Design

Content Writer

Since a long time, web design professionals have relied on bitmap editing tools for their various projects. Photoshop used to be and still is the de facto tool for web design for many such professional worldwide. However, it has grown in bulk over the last few years and that has prompted many web designers to look for an alternate tool. There are several freeware or cheaper alternatives to Photoshop that can be used for web design. However, if you prefer compatibility with Adobe tools and flexibility in design workflow- you may give its sibling aka Illustrator a try!

Why try Illustrator for web graphic design?

Illustrator was not primarily meant to be a web graphics design tool, to be sure. It was used a lot by the print industry professionals. However, in last few years Adobe has laden it with oodles of web friendly features. If you are wondering if using a vector based app is viable for creating compelling web graphics, go through the following points!

Wide file format support - Illustrator offers support for a wide range of image file formats and with each version, file support has improved by margin. You can import and export many types of image files using this tool.

Integration with Photoshop - If you have used Photoshop for web graphics design for long, you should not have any trouble using Illustrator either! The UI similarities are there and importing Photoshop files in this app is easy. In fact, it is ideal for those who prefer designing website with Adobe tools such as Dreamweaver.

Responsive design - With time, web designers are resorting to responsive web design. Web designers are making sites that scale across myriads of screen resolutions and sizes. In this respect, working with a vector tool for graphics creation makes more sense than sticking to bitmap-only software.

Time saving benefits - You may not have thought about it but using Illustrator in web graphics creation and editing can prove to be time saving, really! By using and reusing symbols, you can edit web page elements and see the changes reflected within seconds. For example, you can make footer and navigation areas with symbols. Using the app’s Character and paragraph styles eases non-destructive workflow.

SVG support - Illustrator natively supports SVG for a long time. Thankfully, web browsers have become adept at handling and rendering SVG. SVG makes it possible to render vector artworks to web browsers directly.

Since a long time, web design professionals have relied on bitmap editing tools for their various projects. Photoshop used to be and still is the de facto tool for web design for many such professional worldwide. However, it has grown in bulk over the last few years and that has prompted many web designers to look for an alternate tool. There are several freeware or cheaper alternatives to Photoshop that can be used for web design. However, if you prefer compatibility with Adobe tools and flexibility in design workflow- you may give its sibling aka Illustrator a try!

Why try Illustrator for web graphic design?

Illustrator was not primarily meant to be a web graphics design tool, to be sure. It was used a lot by the print industry professionals. However, in last few years Adobe has laden it with oodles of web friendly features. If you are wondering if using a vector based app is viable for creating compelling web graphics, go through the following points!

Wide file format support - Illustrator offers support for a wide range of image file formats and with each version, file support has improved by margin. You can import and export many types of image files using this tool.

Integration with Photoshop - If you have used Photoshop for web graphics design for long, you should not have any trouble using Illustrator either! The UI similarities are there and importing Photoshop files in this app is easy. In fact, it is ideal for those who prefer designing website with Adobe tools such as Dreamweaver.

Responsive design - With time, web designers are resorting to responsive web design. Web designers are making sites that scale across myriads of screen resolutions and sizes. In this respect, working with a vector tool for graphics creation makes more sense than sticking to bitmap-only software.

Time saving benefits - You may not have thought about it but using Illustrator in web graphics creation and editing can prove to be time saving, really! By using and reusing symbols, you can edit web page elements and see the changes reflected within seconds. For example, you can make footer and navigation areas with symbols. Using the app’s Character and paragraph styles eases non-destructive workflow.

SVG support - Illustrator natively supports SVG for a long time. Thankfully, web browsers have become adept at handling and rendering SVG. SVG makes it possible to render vector artworks to web browsers directly.

Sure, the web designing is going on with big changes, however, and the role Illustrator can play in a web design work flow is varying too. Therefore Adobe Illustrator is a great source by using it the designing website & applications are fast.

Content Writer

Most of the artists I know use both Photoshop and Illustrator as they are both great graphic programs. I have only tried using Photoshop and I can say that you can do a lot with it. Probably one of the major difference is that Photoshop is used for already created photos or graphics while Illustrator is used to create vector graphics.